In a newly reported set of experiments that show the value of a particularly precise but difficult genetic engineering technique, researchers at Brown University and the University of California–Irvine have created a Drosophila fruit fly model of epilepsy to discern the mechanism by which temperature-dependent seizures happen. The researchers used a technique called homologous recombination—a more precise and sophisticated technique than transgenic gene engineering—to give flies a disease-causing mutation that is a direct analogue of the mutation that leads to febrile epileptic seizures in humans.